


the ones who walked away

by orphan_account



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 18:16:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7944421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pupok had a bad temperament. It’d been decided.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ones who walked away

**Author's Note:**

> **Hozier "Jackie and Wilson"**  
>  Lord it'd be great to find a place we could escape sometime  
> Me and my Isis growing black irises in the sunshine  
> Every version of me dead and buried in the yard outside  
> Sit back and watch the world go by

Pupok had a bad temperament. It’d been decided.  

Sarah wasn’t altogether sure when Pupok had been bumped up to the list of acceptable topics for discussion, but she wasn’t about to speak up and ruin her luck. She'd been arm wrestling that damned scorpion for the past few weeks and she couldn't even see it. Both of them were vying for Helena's attention by using inside jokes and ‘ _you had to be there_ ’ moments as ammunition. Pupok had the advantage of living inside Helena’s mind and therefore knowing everything, but Sarah had won a few rounds of her own.

“Really, what happened?” Sarah asked coolly.

“She’s mean to the twins,” Helena murmured.

Sarah sucked on her lower lip and said nothing for a while. Her leather boots were spattered with mud from the trail and she was beginning to run out of coffee. Helena hiked at a quicker pace than she did and tended to wind up a mile or so ahead by the end of their morning hike, but today Sarah had managed to keep the pace. This was her consequence—dirtied shoes and an empty plastic cup, which Helena would make her carry until they got back to the cabin because of _the environment_. Who taught her about that anyway? Probably Alison.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing to them, I’d never let that happen,” Helena said quickly. “But she says things to me, cruel things like—they’re going to end up like me.”

“What—badass?” Sarah asked. Helena didn’t respond straight away, but gave a mild smile and stepped over a fern with dagger-like leaves. Tipping her head back, Sarah finished the last of her coffee and passed it off between her hands, thinking that if she dropped it then Helena would carry it for the rest of the hike.

“No,” Helena said softly. “Not bad-ass.”

Sarah touched her shoulder with the empty coffee cup.

“Lucia and Silvia are the gentlest pups I ever met. They have your best qualities.”

Helena smiled and bumped into her shoulder.

“Pupok would not agree—but she’s wrong sometimes, I suppose,” Helena said.

“Damned right,” Sarah muttered. “Where is that bugger, anyway?”

 “Sleeping,” Helena said.

How Helena could simultaneously be awake and sleeping, Sarah didn't know. She'd learned not to search for significance in the way Pupok fit into Helena's life.

“Why am I the only one you force onto morning hikes?” Sarah said. “You took Kira bowling, without me I might add.”

Helena hummed, wrapping her hands behind her waist.

“Routine is good—for people like us,” Helena said. “Keeps the mind busy.”

Sarah nodded. For a time, they walked in silence and reached a clearing in the trees. At the bottom of the hill sat Helena's cabin, beside a meandering stream. Around this time of the year, mid-October, Helena watched the with squinted, distrustful eyes, as though it were a stranger that might at any time pull a knife.The Hendrixes had collapsed their home like a canvas tent and fled to Florida, but they had made sure to put Helena up someplace where she wouldn’t be routinely cleared out by park rangers at the end of every month. The sun rose above the hill like a clay plate, smearing the sky with the red hues of the morning.

“Have you talked to Beth recently?” Helena asked, causing  Sarah to bite her tongue.

“You’re starting in early,” Sarah mumbled. “No, Helena—we haven’t been on talking terms for a while now.”

Helena hummed.

“You must miss her,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Sarah shut her eyes and took a deep breath. _Be nice_ , she thought.

“Look, I know it’s different for you—but when people hear voices, it normally isn't  _encouraged_ that you talk back.”

“But then: How do you know what she wants from you, if you don’t listen?” Helena asked.

Sarah thought about the last thing Beth had told her. _Bring us together_. Looking out over the hill, she could see the city glimmer beyond the trees, spotted by the cover of passing clouds. Bring us together. She'd done that, in a way. Sometimes she felt she’d misunderstood what Beth had meant and that she’d failed somehow, despite everything.   

“Did I tell you I saw Grace yesterday? She was with your twins,” Sarah said, swinging her voice into a more pleasant tone. She started ambling down the hill, swinging her arms as she walked, hoping Helena would take the hint. Helena walked behind for a few paces and then hustled back to Sarah’s side, ambling so that they were shoulder-to-shoulder.

“She took them for ice cream.”

Yesterday the girls had stood hand-in-hand with Grace, wearing red-rimmed eyes and sour faces. She’d stopped them on the street for a brief, awkward conversation and listened to the way the twins loudly plucked the lollipops from their mouths with a loud smack. The lollipops were of the general shit quality as most hospital candy and was packaged in a shimmering plastic wrapping. Lucia had a lime green lollipop that turned her tongue a mulch black color while Silvia licked at one that was cherry flavored. Her tongue was an appropriate neon red, and her cheeks looked as though they could have easily been smeared with blood.

“They’d just gotten vaccinated.”

Helena waved a hand indifferently.

“It is the end destination that’s important. The shots were just—a detour.”

Sarah thought of Grace’s gentle smile as she stood squinting on the street while Sarah remained on the sidewalk, leveled eye-to-eye.  It was a patient sort of smile, one that said she was more comfortable making conversation with Helena in her varying moods (or with Pupok for that matter) than with Sarah. Her eyes had a faraway suffering look, but she’d smiled all the same. Her hair was plaited into a fishtail braid, which made her unruly hair appear shorter and more mild-mannered than what it actually was.  

“How is Grace, anyway?”

“Busy with the mourning,” Helena said, frowning. “But she takes good care of the girls—likes taking them to the doctors and such things, even when they cry. Very resolute. I’d spoil them rotten without her.”

“I wish there was a way we could’ve saved Mark—”

“Without saving Castor,” Helena said. “I know.”

They walked down the remainder of the hill in silence, nursing the words that soured in their mouth and pricked at their gums. She remembered the way Ira had grasped at her before the glitch had finally taken him— _save me_ , his eyes had pleaded with her. _I deserve to live. I’m just like you_. It wouldn’t have been impossible to save him, even then. She could have done it.

“I feel like shit,” Sarah said wrapping her hands around her head. “I don’t feel like walking tomorrow, I think I’m just going to sleep in.”

Helena gave her a slight, upturned smile.

“You said that yesterday.”

“Take Pupok instead,” she said. “I mean, what’s the point to this?”

Helena continued smiling faintly, but gave no response. Her expression was consumed by that pursed, inward look. Maybe she was consulting with Pupok. In fact, she'd probably been talking to Pupok the whole time. She looked at the canopy of cedars above them. The road had dwindled to a single-track dirt path and walked in single-file. The air was moist and dark.

At last, Helena stopped beside Sarah and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her grip was gentle but steady. Dark crescents of dirt were embedded beneath her fingernails and when she smiled, her teeth were oddly reminiscent of the rows of immaculate tombstones erected on the hillsides of hidden, forgotten places.

“The things we do don’t matter, Sarah. So long as they keep our mind off the things we didn’t do.”

 


End file.
